


'Uhaskhajam

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: "Take me instead", "a wizard is never late he arrives precisely when he means to", Blood, Day 9, Medical Care, Whipping, Whumptober 2020, because I think we could argue that Gandalf was pretty late this time, descriptions of injuries, field medicine, loss of consciousness, shackles, suddenly has a very different feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: Kili trades himself for Ori, passing himself off as the youngest member of the Company in Goblin Town.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947493
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	'Uhaskhajam

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [aravenwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood) for her extreme kindness in being willing to beta all of these whumptober fills! Especially so since she's also writing her own (amazing!) fics too! Please go check her out and give her some love!!!!
> 
> Title taken from Dwarrow Scholar's Neo-Khuzdul dictionary.   
> 'Uhaskhajam: sacrifice (singular noun)

“Start with the youngest!” 

Kili turns to see pure terror in Ori’s eyes. The young scribe has never been in a proper fight, trolls notwithstanding, and certainly he’s never been questioned, roughed up, or outright tortured. That falls to the older and more weathered of them — Dwalin, Balin, Nori, Bifur, Thorin, and possibly some of the others. But none of them could pass for the youngest. 

Kili can, though. Kili’s fought alongside Thorin and the others against orcs and wargs, men and trolls. He’s been beaten up, broken, and stabbed more than once. He’s not sure about his ability to withstand torture, but he can’t be worse at it than a little scribe who’s barely spent any time out of doors before this adventure. 

He points at Oin, who’s deafness and white hair make it clear he’s one of the oldest. “He’s the youngest, not me!” 

The goblin king sneers. “You think me a fool boy? Grab him!”

And just like, Kili is dragged front and center despite the many dwarven hands that clutch and pull at him to slow the inevitable. 

“So you’re the youngest? Well, I can see why you would try to trick me, you’ve not even managed a beard yet,” the goblin king observes. Then he turns to the whole underground assembly, “I wonder if his voice will crack when he’s on the rack?! String him up, boys!”

Filthy, stinking goblin hands paw at Kili’s coat and tunic, and he fights them as best he can. But they peel away the coat and then tear the rest away, leaving Kili in his trousers and boots.

Behind him, Kili can hear Fili shouting and Thorin growling threats at the goblin king, but all he knows is that while he managed to save Ori, he’s now leapt into the fire himself. He struggles as he’s hauled up onto the rack and manages a few solid kicks to the goblins behind him, but fight or not, he’s soon manacled into place. 

The rack is vertical and Kili’s arms are above his head. He’s facing the rack itself and it affords him a close up view of the machinery within. Elongated wheels like rolling pins populate the contraption, and their surfaces are covered in various things from nails to shards of obsidian, and bone to the ends of arrows. Each has its own crank and Kili can see where the wheels are designed to be moved against the victim and cranked over the length of their body, _his body._

Fear, real true mortal fear grips Kili. He’s about to be flayed alive right here, right now, in front of his family. Those wretched wheels are going to rip into him and he is going to die slowly and painfully. For once, Kili is struck speechless and he writhes, pulling at the restraints so hard he feels them cut into his wrists. 

“Let’s get him warmed up boys!” the goblin king yells.

Fili and Thorin and several others scream in unison, clearly seeing something that Kili does not. A second later Kili’s voice joins theirs as a forked knout snaps across his bare back. It feels as though rips as it goes, tearing and leaving gouges in its wake. Kili has never felt pain like this before and he already regrets his choice to take Ori’s place. Lash after lash falls and Kili screams until his voice cracks, his vocal chords all but raw. 

“Ah!” shouts the goblin king. “I told you he would squawk for us!”

Cheers resound in the cavernous city, but the voice that reaches Kili in his pain and fear is Fili’s.

“Nadith!”

Kili searches the crowd before him, knowing Fili is there even though he can hardly see through the tears. Fili has tears of his own rolling down his cheeks and he’s struggling violently under the force of five goblins. Kili knows Fili will kill the first one he gets a grip on and hopes his brother slays every last one. 

“Now flip him! It’s time to roll! It’s time to grind!” the goblin king bellows.

The haze of pain is broken by newer, stronger fear, and Kili starts fighting even before the restraints are off. He gets two solid kicks in — both to goblin faces — and then a blinding light fills the cavern.Goblins and dwarves alike are blown down, and many of the goblins are sent flying. 

Taking advantage of the chaos, the company rushes towards Kili, grabbing weapons as they go. Swords and axes rend the goblins that stand between them and the rack. Kili continues to writhe in his metal bonds and his wrists bleed, sending red rivulets down his arms. 

Nori is the one who breaks from the company first, darting between goblins and dwarves. He scales the rack, carefully avoiding the many sharp rollers, and produces a small leather tool case. 

"Ease off on the fighting there, lad. You wanna have your hands still attached when this is over and done with," Nori chides.

One by one the metal restraints spring free and Kili is left to dangle until the last is open, whereupon he slips and falls to the platform. 

His injuries all flare, agony washing over him in waves strong enough that he vomits. He lays there shaking unable to move, imagining his back flayed to the bone, his ribs and spine all showing like a deer being dressed. The reek of his own blood reminds him of the slaughterhouses of men, full of fear and death. 

Hands grab him by the arms, pulling him upright and he screams, flailing wildly. He's already going to die, what more do they want from him? Kili imagines being flayed, nothing left of him on that rack but bones and sinew as the grinder tears him through. 

"Kili!" 

Thorin's steely voice cuts through the panic and Kili turns toward the sound only to discover that Thorin is one of those helping him to stand. 

"We must hurry. Can you walk?" Thorin presses.

Kili takes one faltering step and collapses, caught yet again by Thorin and Fili. He shakes his head unable to speak.

"I've got him," Dwalin says gruffly. "You're not going to like this, lad." 

It's all the warning Kili gets before Dwalin hauls the young dwarf across his shoulders, an arm in one hand, a leg in the other. True to his word, as Dwalin always is, Kili does not like being carried thus. It's disorienting, his growing dizziness exacerbated by the position, and the pain becomes once again so unbearable that Kili retches. Nothing comes up and either way, Dwalin seems not to care even if something had.

Before they’ve even made it two steps, the entirety of the platform collapses, and the whole of the company falls, the wooden structure bouncing off the sides of the chasm as they tumble into the abyss below.

*****

They take turns carrying Kili. He’s no light load, and though the hurried nature of their escape slowed after their exit from the caves, they’re now deep in the wilds without supplies. They can’t afford to rest. 

“I’ll take a turn,” Bofur offers Fili for the fifth time since they left the caves. Fili is reluctant to pass off his brother, especially since he has yet to wake after their fall, but his legs are beginning to falter.

“Thank you,” Fili says, and he carefully situates his brother across the miner’s shoulders.

Having watched Kili’s torment was hard enough, but seeing the damage as he rests limply across Bofur’s shoulders is nearly as bad. He had not gotten a clear view of the damage until they were free of the caves, and now he almost wishes he hadn’t. The lashes are deep and there are gouges where chunks of skin and flesh were ripped from Kili’s back. It’s tough to count how many lashes were dealt by simply looking at the damage — many of the wounds overlap — but Fili counted every one as they fell. 

Thirty-three.

More than enough to kill a man, nearly enough to kill a dwarf. Fili doesn’t entertain the idea that it might still yet.

“Quickly!” Gandalf calls. “The scent of blood has attracted wolves! Run!”

*****

Kili wakes screaming. His back is agony, every nerve alive and burning bright. Several pairs of hands, strong and calloused, hold Kili down, and he squirms weakly in the straw beneath him. 

“Easy, lad. Easy,” rumbles Dwalin. “We’ve got you.”

Kili’s head throbs and spins in time with his heartbeat. But despite his disorientation, Kili remembers it all, clear as crystal. As Oin and the others clean the debris from his wounds, tears seep from Kili’s eyes to drip into the straw below him. He tries to console himself by telling himself it was worth it, that Ori never would have survived, that this choice was the right one. But his mind is filled with fear and pain, all he wants is someone to make it better. He wants his amad who would make him chicken and dumplings and brush his hair from his eyes with her fingers stained a deep brown from the dyes they use in the textile shop. She could make this better, but he doesn’t have her. He has Dwalin, Bofur, Thorin, Oin, and Nori who are unrelenting in their restraint and have little comfort to offer him.

Kili can barely tolerate the pain, but the embarrassment makes the situation unbearable. Kili hasn’t cried in front of his elders since he was learning the Cirth; he’s supposed to be battle tested dwarf, not some crying child with a snotty nose. He hates himself for this — hates that he thought being brave for Ori was smart, hates that he’s so weak that they have to hold him down, hates that he’s crying, hates that he wants his amad. He hates all of it. 

Despite his best effort, Kili’s silent crying eventually turns into sobs, and then begging. He becomes desperate for relief, but they keep telling him to “take it easy” and “let them work.” By the time Oin has cleaned and sutured and bandaged all that he’s going to, Kili is keening like a wounded animal, his crying now wracking sobs that shake his small frame. 

“Let him up. Let him up,” Oin instructs. 

Kili doesn’t move. He wants to curl in on himself but the knowledge of how much that will hurt keeps him still. Footsteps and soft murmurs tell Kili that several of the other dwarrow leave, but Dwalin and Nori still flank him.

Kili wishes Nori, at the very least, would leave them. At least Dwalin is kin, and there’s some small comfort that weakness in front of kin might be forgiven. But Nori is no blood of his, he’d never even met the dwarf before the quest. Gloin has whispered “thief” and “criminal” when Nori isn’t around, but that’s the most Kili knows of him. It’s certainly not enough to let his guard down around him.

But despite this, Nori is the one who breaks the silence. “I know you’ve heard the rumors, about me, I mean. That I was a thief. It’s true. I stole quite a lot of things from a great many places, though I wasn’t always good at it.”

Kili’s crying has ebbed to a bad case of sniffles and hiccoughs. He doesn’t care about Nori or anything the dwarf has to say, but he’s too tired to say anything.

“Once, in a town far west of Ered Luin, by the sea in Forlond, I got pinched lifting some rubies from a nobleman’s wife. They took me before their magistrate who sentenced me to forty lashes, punishment to be carried out immediately. It was a simple bullwhip, less dangerous than that studded knout but not gentle either. I screamed until my voice was gone and then they kindly doused me in vinegar to keep infection at bay. I passed out after that.”

Listening to Nori’s recounting of his own lashing is more than Kili can bear and fresh tears roll down his cheeks. Dwalin’s axe calloused hand rests gently on Kili’s shoulder, more reassuring than he would ever admit.

“All I’m trying to say, lad, is that no one comes out of something like this with any dignity. I know what it’s like. It’ll just take time.” 

Kili hears the soft crunch of straw as Nori leaves and he sags into the ground cover, tension draining from him.

“He’s right, lad,” Dwalin murmurs. “You saved Ori and I’m right proud of you. We all are. And grateful, too. It was brave, braver than most are or ever will be. And you’re young, you’ll heal sooner than you realize. Now rest, your brother will be back with dinner before you know it.”

Dwalin deals out praise in miniscule portions, and Kili has never before heard so much at once. It’s reassuring, and though the tears don’t stop, Kili settles a bit easier, if not the pain, then the fear ebbing away. 

“Sleep,” Dwalin orders, his hand still on Kili’s shoulder. Kili doesn’t think he can, but closing his eyes can’t hurt. He’s earned it.


End file.
